MBA1399 Should You Write a Book in 2020?

Ready to save on new tech. It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster. And with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte, paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

Heyoo. Welcome to the Hundred Doll. Because your business only deserves the best. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and in today's episode you will learn should you write a book in 2020? Many of people's New Year's resolutions include writing a book. But many people are wondering, is writing a book a good move for your business? For your brand? Is it still a thing in today's digital world? Can you make money? Is it worth the trouble? Well, we get into all of that in today's episode. Writing a book can be a great move for you and your business if you know why you're writing the book, if you have an intention. This is something I learned from Elizabeth Marshall, who has worked with New York Times bestselling authors like Seth Godin and Michael Port. Understanding what it takes to have a bestseller and if that's really what you need to aim for to be successful with your book and how to modernize a book launch given the technology that's out there today and beyond in 2020. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Let me start today's episode by saying no matter why you want to write a book, whatever the intentions are, the goal is understand that writing a good book takes time. It's going to take a commitment of your time and effort and energy. So if you want to write a book in 2020, awesome. But make sure you carve out the time in your calendar. Make it a part of your TO dos and make it a Part of what you have to work on every day for a certain period of time. Understand that when you write a book, it's not just writing the book. The book is just the beginning. And many people think that actually writing the book is the easy part. It's everything else afterwards. The publishing, the marketing, the promotion, that stuff can take a long time. I was speaking to a friend of mine who just released a book and it was traditionally published by a publisher. And he was expressing his frustration because he was promoting a book he wrote two years ago. It's been two years since he wrote it, but it took two years to publish it and market it and sell it and all that kind of stuff. Now, it doesn't have to take that long in all cases, but that's an example that you should take to heart. This is a commitment. This is a time commitment from you. And if you want to do this right, you need to make that commitment. Now, like I mentioned at the top of the episode, the number one thing you need to do first, the first thing you have to do before you start writing your book is answer the question, why? Why are you writing a book? What are you trying to get out of this exercise? What's the end game? And no matter what the answer is, it's okay. But you just need to understand what's the purpose? What's the goal? So for some people, they want to write a book because it becomes their calling card. It becomes a way to become a thought leader in a market or a niche so they can be invited to speak on stage and it kind of propels their speaking career. That's why they want to write a book. If that's the intention, then selling as many books as possible, tying it to your speech or the speeches you want to give, all that kind of stuff is the priority. It's not making money. Your number one goal is exposure, really is you want to get this book out there and hopefully maybe even hit a list like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times bestseller. Not easy. But if that's the goal, then know what you're going for. For some people, a book is an entry level product to their suite of products. Maybe the suite of products not built out yet, but they want to start selling products and they want to start with a book. Because a book is a very low cost, entry level product. It's $10, $15. And it gets people understanding what you're all about and getting them a win. Many people build businesses around books. So they create a book and then they build a course around it and then they build coaching around it, then a mastermind around it. And really hitting a New York Times bestselling list is not the priority. The priority here is writing a valuable maybe how to book to get somebody interested in the services you offer as well as give them some value to understand that, hey, you're credible, you're an authority. If you want to learn more, check out my courses, check out everything else I offer. So entry level product can be another reason why you're doing this. You may simply want to write a book because it's a passion project of yours. You've always wanted to be an author. You always wanted to write a book and you just want to get it out of your system. And you want to write a book and put it out there and hold that book in your hand and feel proud of yourself. If that's your goal, write that down. But here's the thing, it's very hard for you to achieve success in any of these. If you spread yourself thin and try to do more than one at a time. This is a reality you have to face. If your number one goal is to hit a New York Times bestselling list, or the Wall Street Journal, or the USA Today list or whatever it is, then that's a mountain you have to climb and you have to be really dedicated to that. It's very hard for you to also accomplish the other ones I just talked about. So be laser focused, know what you're getting into, know what your want is or your goal is. Why? Because it's gonna ask you to do certain things because of that goal. Again, if you're trying to hit a list, marketing and distribution and partnering with the right person, doing interviews, it's all about selling the book. Obviously you have to have a good book on your hands. But if you want to be a bestseller, you have to sell. This is a long term project. This is two, three years in the making. Creating books as an entry level product to your suite of products, then maybe that's not a long term type of thing. You can self publish, you can sell it right on your website, you can sell it as an ebook. There's a lot of options there. And really promotion is just promoting to your own list and promoting to your own audience and maybe doing some cross promotion with some partners and maybe traditionally publishing it is not necessary. So you see how defining your goal in the beginning is so imperative. This is why it's so important. This is why I start with this and to really what's going to get the ball rolling in any direction now I'm here to say that books is still a huge thing, right? It's not just because we're in, you know, the Future now and 2020 and all that kind of stuff. Books are a huge marketplace. I still read books, I listen to books, I buy. Books is one of the things I spend my money on. And I spend a quite a fair bit of money on books. I buy about 50 to 60 books a year. And as much as that may sound, that is nothing compared to some other people. Some people consume a whole lot more books a year. Books make a great gift. Books look beautiful. Printed versions in your office or in your home, people still read, people still listen to books. And in my opinion, books are probably the most bang for your buck. Value when it comes to self education and personal development. The amount of value I get from reading a book or listening to a book, it blows my mind how cheap this is. You know, I bought this book for 10 bucks and it's given me five, six, seven different insights and perspectives just in the first chapter. How is this only 10 bucks? It costs almost twice as much to watch a two hour movie that I can't watch again. So that's one of the main reasons why books are not going anywhere. There's still incredible value. And I say that in all formats. Kindle, audio and print versions. I like print versions for certain reasons. I have print versions of books that I love to read at the beach. I don't like to read on a Kindle on a beach. If I'm going on a holiday, I like to take one book with me and have the mission to finish that book in the next few days. So certain books are just gorgeous. Like I said, I love to have them in my office, put them on my bookshelf behind me. So the business of books is still strong. I want to say though, if you are not ready to write a book, if you don't have the time for it because you have other priorities in your business, you have other goals. If you can't think of a reason why you want to write a book, you don't have to write a book, okay? I'm one of those people, you know, like, I love books and I love the things that books give me. But even though I would love to write a book, I just don't want to write one right now. Right now is just not the time for it. I know there will be a time where I have to write a book. I'll have to get this book out of Me, but I am not there. I've written other books, self published other books, workbooks, with the purpose of supplementing my business, but not something that I want to take on for the next two years. So it's okay to say I'm not going to go and write a book next year. I'm going to save that for a different time. But it's not okay for you to say that and not have a because. You have to have a because. Like I'm not going to do it because I'm going to be focusing on this. I'm going to be focusing on this goal. I need to accomplish XYZ before the end of the year and my full attention is going to be on it. One of the last things I want to mention is that books in general, and this is a generality, people do break this rule all the time, but in general they're not a huge money maker. Okay, if you publish, you're going to get a percentage of the royalties. You might be getting a dollar or two per book for sale. So even if you sell 100,000 copies over the course of the next couple years, which is a lot of copies, that's a hundred grand and you could have made a hundred grand in a year. Selling an online course, very possible, very achievable. So it's not the best way to make money. But a lot of people make money around a great selling book, like keynotes and speaking opportunities. For example, Scott Stratton, who is a great public speaker, he has published several books and he speaks on stage for 20 and $25,000 a pop. Not a bad way to make a buck. So there's plenty of backend sales and like I mentioned, you know, your own products and services and things like that. If you go the self publishing route, there are means to actually make money. There are people that actually make money on self published books. They do it at volume, they create different guides and they sell them straight on their website. And it's a good supplemental income, but it's not one of those things where they're like, hey, I'm a millionaire now, I just wrote a book. To wrap up today's lesson, if you have a clear cut goal to why you want to write a book in 2020, do it. Commit the time, commit the effort and make it happen. But if you can't really pin down why you want to write a book, maybe it's not the time. Maybe it's better for you to focus on other goals in your business for your brand, for your for your own personal development, it's okay to say thanks, but maybe later. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love it here, hit subscribe right now so you don't miss a beat by hitting subscribe, you never miss an episode. As soon as we publish an episode, it shows up right on your device. We're on every app that you can find that plays podcasts, whether it's Citradio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Himalaya. We're on them all. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. There's also the financial investment involved when it comes to writing a book. If you want to do it right, you're probably going to want to get a good editor. You want to get a good publicist. Somebody that can get the name out there, can help you promote your book. If you're working with a publisher, you may want to look into getting an agent that can maybe get you a better deal. You're going to need an illustrator or a designer for your book cover. So there are expenses here. And it's not just your effort and your time. So keep that in mind. Maybe do a rough budget, see what you're willing to spend, or I should say willing to invest in this project. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

Of ram.